C.J. has served as Senior Pastor of Covenant Life Church since its inception in 1977. In a special service on Sept. 19, 2004, he passed the senior pastor baton to Joshua Harris. Although he retains an office next door to Joshua, C.J.'s primary role now shifts to oversight of Sovereign Grace Ministries, a growing family of 60 local churches in six countries.

C.J. serves on the board of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and the advisory council of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).

“It is a joy and privilege to have served with C.J. [Mahaney] for 31 years now, and to have served with several of the other pastors, such as Robin [Boisvert], John [Loftness], and Kenneth [Maresco], for two to three decades,” says Gary Ricucci.

In 1974, Gary became a staff member at TAG, a ministry in Washington, D.C., led by C. J. Gary was ordained as a pastor in Covenant Life Church (then called Gathering of Believers) in 1977, which was also the year that he married the former Betsy Mahaney.

Today, Gary provides pastoral care for the students in the Sovereign Grace Pastors College. Gary and Betsy recently completed the second edition of their book on marriage, Love That Lasts, published by Crossway Books.

Gary holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Carson-Newman College in Tennessee.

“Providing pastoral care and equipping for couples, leaders and their families, especially when Betsy and I can serve together, is very fulfilling to me,” says Gary. “Couples in the Pastors College will actually build entire churches with the gospel for the glory of God. This is sobering and yet so gratifying.”

Gary and Betsy have four children, one of whom is married. The family resides in Gaithersburg.

Jeff made a profession of faith as a child, but experienced a life-transforming conversion in 1981 during his sophomore year at Berry College in Rome, Georgia.  It was during this same period that Jeff met Julie, who would become his wife in 1987. “I was powerfully and specifically confronted by the gospel’s claims, while at the same time surrounded by a community of believers whose lives displayed the reality of the gospel,” he says. “I placed my faith in Christ, decisively repented, and experienced a profound transformation.”

Jeff’s pre-ministry experience combines a degree in Economics and English Literature with a decade in the corporate banking world. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div., 1998), where as  a student he taught Greek as a teaching fellow in the New Testament department. Jeff is also known for his work as editor of Bible Doctrine, an abridgement of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from The Catholic University of America.

After a 9 month internship at Covenant Life, Jeff became the Dean of Academic and Student Affairs for the Pastors College of Sovereign Grace Ministries in 1998 and also began serving on the Covenant Life pastoral team that year. His primary responsibilities with the church are serving on the teaching team, and supporting the other pastors biblically and theologically. His ministry passion is “to train leaders who will handle God’s Word with precision and passion in expounding the glories of our Savior and the gospel.”

Jeff, his wife Julie, and their two sons reside in the Gaithersburg area.